You'll need to give your telesales staff something to work with if you want to boost your newspaper's subscriptions. Calling potential new customers up and offering them something they can buy down the road for the same price will be unlikely to cut it. If you can come up with a decent deal that offers people a package they can't get anywhere else, you'll stand a good chance of boosting your circulation.

Trial and Price

Offer a free trial period or a reduction in the cover price of your paper to new subscribers. Instruct your telesales agents to compare the rate new customers have to pay with your paper's full price when trying to sell subscriptions. This will be a particularly useful tool if your sales staff talk to prospects who already buy your paper at its full price. You can also offer a free gift to anybody who signs up for a subscription. Increased sales and any subsequent boost to ad revenue should help offset the cost of this campaign.

Cancellation

Don't tie your new customers in. Your sales staff will find that being able to say new subscribers can cancel at any time is invaluable. They'll then be able to sell prospects a risk-free proposition, especially if you're offering a free trial period. Locking new customers into minimum subscriptions will be likely to turn a lot of people off, no matter how short the compulsory period is. If your content is good, there is a good chance your new subscribers will stay on board without being tied in.

Content

If your paper is print-only, rather than online, have your sales staff use this in their pitch. Tell prospective subscribers they'll be getting exclusive content they won't be able to read on their Internet-enabled devices. If you have online content that's behind a paywall, include access to this with subscriptions to your physical newspaper. If you have a limited online offering, have your sales staff stress that the majority of your paper's content only makes it into your print edition.

Benefits of Physical Format

Talk up the benefits of having a physical paper delivered to your door. You can take it anywhere and not have to rely on a Wi-Fi or 3G data connection to read content, and you won't have to get to a newsstand to buy it. If your salespeople are talking to older prospects, have them romanticize the act of leafing through a proper newspaper as opposed to reading content online.